Victor Davis Hanson well articulates at Real Clear Politics a theory that I have been mulling ever since 9/11: step—by—step, Western patience with Islamic terror and its supporters on multi—cultural grounds is dying. Sooner or later we will start fighting as if our lives depended on winning.

Yet for all their threats, what the Islamists —— from Hezbollah in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley to the Iranian government in Tehran to the jihadists in Iraq's Sunni Triangle —— don't understand is that they are slowly pushing tired Westerners into a corner. If diplomacy, or aid, or support for democracy, or multiculturalism, or withdrawal from contested lands, does not satisfy radical Islamists, what would?

Perhaps nothing.

What then would be the new Western approach to terrorism? Hard and quick retaliation —— but without our past concern for nation—building, or offering a democratic alternative to theocracy and autocracy, or even worrying about whether other Muslims are unfairly lumped in with Islamists who operate freely in their midst.

Any new policy of retaliation —— in light both of Sept. 11 and the messy efforts to birth democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and the West Bank —— would be something of an exasperated return to the old cruise—missile payback. Yet in the new world of Iranian nukes and Hezbollah missiles, the West would hit back with something far greater than a cruise missile.

If they are not careful, a Syria or Iran really will earn a conventional war —— not more futile diplomacy or limited responses to terrorism. And history shows that massive attacks from the air are something that the West does well.

I have been worried that it would take a WMD attack on American soil tro fully awaken us to the fact that we, too, are in a fight for our lives, just as is Israel. Perhaps I have been too pessimistic.

Thomas Lifson   7 20 06